12 Jan 2015

Alan Melia

15:37 (2 hours ago)

To rsgb_lf_group, rsgb_lf_group

Hi
all, it may not have registered with many yet as it has not made the
National TV news but there is a partial eclipse of the sun due on March
20th 2015.
As part of my involvement with the RSGB Propagation Studies Committee it
occurs to me that this is a fine opportunity to roll out the
capabilities of Opera, and WSPR and the monitoring network on 136 and
477kHz.
The path of the totality passes due north of the UK with only Shetland
seeing a full eclipse. The majority of the UK is rated around 80%. The
most interesting paths are those from the opposite side of the path of
totality. Unfortunately (or otherwise :-)) ) the only LF-active area on
the other side is Iceland, and I know there is a "grabber" operator
active there. I suggest some interesting results could be obtained if
European stations could be active into the Iceland grabber during the
period of the eclipse which is 07:40 to 11:40 UTC (I think we should be
on GMT still in the UK at that date :-)) ) I am not fully sure what
facilities the Icelandic operator has but maybe someone who knows him
better could liaise a suitable set up.
It is obviouly not as big an event as 1999 but could prove interesting.